Alternate Soul Society
by Charles Bhepin
Summary: Warning: no strawberries. This is AU or strongly prequel. Apologies, if you dislike vauge crossovers, original characters or mangled history. Otherwise, have a story formatted in oldfashioned heroic epic.
1. Prologue: Into the Far Night

It was not the screams that woke him; nor the pain, or even the smoky stench of  
burning oils made from animal fat. What woke him came from within... a sense of  
urgency, a thing that knew just how utterly wrong it was. An empty thing, screaming  
to be heard.

He opened his eyes and realized he was in some sort of cage. It was barely enough  
for him to sit up in. There were many others just like it, and he assumed he looked  
much like they were - almost naked, bewildered. Men and women, a few children, all  
penned like animals. Their captors were tall, strong men clad in old bronze armor.  
"Slavers..." he thought with distaste.

There was something hungry in their gazes. They were methodical, going from row to  
row and from cage to cage; opening up each cage and forcing up at bladepoint its  
poor contents. Questions were screamed into the prisoner's face, and depending upon  
the answer they were either pushed back in or hauled off to gods' knows where. He  
leaned back on his own cage, knowing he was unlikely to overpower anyone and  
escape when they came for him. Strength seemed gone from his frame.

The slavers pulled out the prisoner to his left, a reedy man in tattered remains of  
what had once been opulent robes. "WHO are YOU?!" One of the slavers, tall and  
bald and presumably the one in authority, abruptly yelled at him. "Answer!" Spittle  
flew into the captive's face.

The poor man was too numb with fright to answer. The other slaver jabbed at him  
with the blunt end of a spear; eliciting a doglike yelp of pain. The question was  
repeated, and made clear this time failure to answer would be paid in blood.  
"Vi-vitellus Parcus, of, of Pergamum?" The answer seemed too long in coming, as if  
the man had to literally pull it out from his memories. He still looked unsure.

"What do you, Vitellus of Pergamum?" the slaver master's voice was bored and still  
promising pain.

"I am... a scribe? Yes, a scribe." His head lolled to the side and his eyes seemed  
empty. "The trade? The taxes, who knows about the taxes? No one must, but... he  
told... he told..."

"Pah!" The slaver sneered. "This one is useless. Throw him in with the others."

Vitellus made strange mewling sounds as he was taken away, to a group of people  
lashed together. They were only lightly guarded, but somehow he had a feeling they  
were as sacrifices. Or food. Or waste. All there seemed in some way physically or  
mentally weak. Vitellus felt he should be insulted, but he was too frightened to resist.  
What could his spindly little arms do against the brutish power of his captors? All his  
life he had never gone wanting for anything, never had to fight or even expend effort  
just to get what he wanted.

The slavers turned to the next cage. The prisoner there was hunched over and  
defiantly met their eyes. His muscles were coiled for action. This seemed to please  
them.

"Ha! Out, you dog!" the slave master snarled, while untying the cage ropes. "Make no  
mistake, for it WILL be your last."

The prisoner clenched his fists, and slowly got out of the cage. Rising to his full  
height, he was surprised to learn he was taller than his captors. He was tempted to  
set blows upon them, but as long as was his reach, those two spears were longer still.

"This one shows promise." said one of the two slaver guards; a man with a full mud-  
colored beard. His face had blue lines etched upon it; whorls ending and beginning,  
turning it into a face full of primeval watery motion. "Where do you come from, dog?  
Did you fail your brutish barbarian gods?"

A flash of red-hot rage suddenly filled him. "I have set many a Gaul to their deaths.  
Their gods would do well to fear me."

The other laughed, his voice surprisingly gentle for such a scarred man. He was taller,  
but not as stocky as his companion. He had the sinewy build of a hunter rather than  
a warrior. Those were claw marks, not blade scars. "Just as I thought. You are far  
from the protection of Mars, foolish little Roman. You might yet meet those Gods you  
defy."

"Who are you?" asked the slave master. He asked it of everyone they captured. He  
would not be denied his answer.

The prisoner blinked. Who? "I am..." He stopped, and frowned. His face slowly  
descended into panic. He could not remember. There was something there, though -  
the memory of a memory... pain, a sense of self that still stood strong. Somehow he  
knew that his name was very important to him, a name that was good and worthy of  
memory. It was just... gone, as if stolen. What remained? Who remained? "I am..."

There was pain, more pain, anger and hatred and loss... so much of it that he had  
endured willingly. "I am..." The name... no, it was not the name that was important,  
he realized. What was done to the man bearing that name. That which he gave  
himself to. That was still intact. It became himself.

He exhaled, and in letting go felt the stirrings of life returning to his limbs. "I am the  
husband of a murdered wife, the father of a murdered son." He stared at the one who  
asked, at his own reflection on those cruel eyes. "And I WILL have my vengeance."  
He all but dared the slaver to mock his declaration. His fingers twitched, ready to  
drive into eyeballs or snatch at throats.

The other man merely smirked. "So was I, so was I. I had my vengeance, nameless  
one. And for your sake, I hope you had yours."

That stopped him cold again. Did I? He closed his eyes, and scraped at the walls of  
his mind. Yes. Yess... he did. Sand and blood. The roars of a crowd. He died without  
fear, justice on his lips.

He died! He opened his eyes wide. "I died..." he breathed. He did so with the  
assurance he would be with his family. He could hear her! The feel of wheat across  
his palms, of a home that was destroyed, a love that was taken from him. He  
staggered back. "But..." He remembered faintly, waking up to the warmth of the sun.  
He was walking, his mind empty. Then, he was set upon. He was robbed of the peace  
he was experiencing.

Darkness.

It was a dirty camp full of dirty people. The fires at sundown only heightened the  
dreary nature of the place. "Is this... Hell?" he asked softly. No, no, it turns out there  
was no such thing as justice after all.

Apparently the raw grief on his face was amusing. "Hell is what you make of it. No,  
not if you prove yourself strong, fell Roman. The few of you that suffer allowed the  
rest of your people to grow fat and useless. Here, only the strong matter. Here, only  
the strong can survive..."

"My family." he asked with all urgency. "I must find them."

"Heh. Listen to me, lost Roman. Can you even remember their names? Can you  
remember their faces? You have power, nameless one. Power even after death,  
power that burned and purified your soul. Look at them!" The slave master pointed at  
the huddled, frightened mass. "They cling to their pitiful memories, as if it matters.

Family, riches, oaths, nations!

None of it matters. None of it follows after death. You will not find your family... this  
land is vast, and people are dying and are being reborn with every moment. The past  
is gone. Leave it there, it is worthless. Follow me, and I will give you comfort even in  
death. Cling to your mortality, and I shall give you its rewards."

The prisoner furrowed his brows. The threat was obvious, but it made little sense.  
"Am I not already dead?"

"Heh." The slave master turned to his assistant, the scarred one, and nodded briefly.  
That slaver picked a cage and brought out a captive; a young man that struggled in  
his grip. He waited for a signal. First making sure that he and the nameless prisoner  
were both looking at the youth, the master held up his thumb. Without hesitation the  
slaver held his spear at mid-shaft and sank its blade into the young man's neck. There  
was just a brief gurgle, and that shocked face went slack as his blood poured to the  
ground, splattering his sandals. The scarred slaver pulled at his spear, widening the  
wound, and let the new corpse drop.

"To be reborn one must die again." he continued. "Serve me and live. Defy me and  
lose everything. Make your choice, nameless one."

The prisoner stared down at the fallen youth. Violence was not unknown to him, and  
it was hardly the worst sight he had ever seen; that much he was sure of. However,  
such senseless waste of life... or afterlife... only removed all doubt from his heart. If  
this was what waited for the wife and son he now only dimly remembered yet loved  
all the same, then to continue its madness hardly served their memory.

"Who are you..." he asked instead, his voice carefully devoid of all emotion. "Who are  
you to decide this is how this place must be?"

A laugh. "I do not know! Is that not hilarious? None of us know who we are. What  
does it matter? We are dead! You may call me the Happy Dead. I have enough delight  
that I am not consumed by the hollowness inside. I have enough hate, that my  
essence does not fracture." He lifted both bare, tattooed arms to the heavens,  
illusory they might be. "There are no Gods here, no laws, nothing but what we  
ourselves decide. It is only true and natural, that the weak become food for the  
strong! The dead are free at last, to be honest with themselves.

Can you not feel it within you? That urge to dominate? We who have no past can  
wrestle the future to our own desires."

There was a child-like expectation on the slaver master's face. He truly believed he  
was pure. That there would be no limits for someone unbound from physical concerns  
was in some way correct, and that was what the prisoner found that most monstrous  
of all.

"...no." he answered at last. "I will not join you."

Mortus Felix (pronounced in a rasping way), as that was his name, seemed to shrink  
into himself. "I see. More and more weaklings die each day, and the few strong souls  
have no fear of dying again. I expected as much. Let me refresh your memory instead  
of a favored pastime of you Romans." He snapped his fingers, and his aides quickly  
held the prisoner still. There was no struggling away from their grip. "Crucify him."

-  
-  
-  
-  
-

The pain began again. His captors were lavish in their application of it, knowing well  
the limits of what his body could endure. He had no idea why being dead he should  
still need a body, much less one that could bleed... but it was very much like being  
alive.

Perhaps it was indeed hell. Demons were not needed to create it; humanity served  
well enough. They had him by the entrance to the camp, along with the dessicated  
husks of others who were defiant before him. Through the heat of the day and the  
night's biting cold he watched as departed souls passed through the palisade's gates.  
The newly-departed arrived unconscious, frail as their souls sought expression in a  
strange new solid form. Teams of slavers went out in search of these poor souls,  
stripping them bare of possessions where they are found, these last remnants of  
physical attachments. Behind the walls were the screams and pleas, of beatings and  
rapings, and humanity exerting its power over another.

Occasionally covered wagons would arrive. There were horses; beautiful, beautiful  
horses. Apparently animals too held souls and identities persisting after death. He  
could only guess that these were animals that were among the strongest of their kind  
or brought over by humanity's need for companionship, sport or food.

Yess... if apparently the dead could not escape pain; then they could also feel cold  
and hunger. That was the worst of it. It made nothing of living. He could have  
convinced himself that his death was nothing more than an illusion, were it not for the  
growing emptiness inside. He could feel his chest caving in, his blood growing colder  
and colder... and for all that, a feeling of invulnerability creeping into his bones. He  
was dying again, he could feel it. But he was at the same time being reborn into  
something greater, beyond humanity, beyond mortality.

The hunger taught him one thing; that there were perhaps communities out there.  
Gangs of slaves were being sent out, and goods entered. The most common use of  
slaves were not as personal servants, but as workers for agriculture and then dirty  
industry. That was slim hope, that his family mght have been fortunate enough to  
escape these beasts and join a more civilized soul society.

As days passed that was replaced with horror. What if out there was simply such  
barbarity greater in scale? Slavery was common in Rome, he could remember that at  
least. What kind of society would purchase slaves and condone the existence of such  
filthy slavers? Living, he had never thought to consider servants as any particular  
wrong. Dead, he knew that the power to make a choice was all-important. All should  
have been equal in death, rather than man preying upon other men, ad infinitum. Who  
encourages such vile acts? He refused to beg, to join that savagery.

Better to die... he wanted to die.

Again.

-  
-  
-  
-  
-

Days, weeks... perhaps even months passed. It all began to blur. Still he kept to his  
existence. The hunger became almost all of who he was, but he clung to the memory  
of his wife and son. I am a husband and a father. As long as he could keep that in his  
mind, it was as if he could exist even outside of himself. The leeching torment  
stopped at that barrier. It was as if something else inside fought to preserve his last  
reserves of humanity. It was hope. Not hope of rescue, but in himself. The spirit that  
believes it cannot be conquered.

It was a time beyond comprehension before he knew the power behind the slavers.  
Now and then he would see a figure, cloaked in black and whose face was covered  
with a skull-like white mask, amongst the wagons entering the camp. The slavers  
were likewise slavish in their attentions to them. It only made sense, buyers were  
protected by anonymity. The day came however, that a procession of these figures  
arrived at the gates.Their cloaks hung limp on the ground and trailed behind them,  
giving them the impression of sliding across the land much as a shadow would as the  
day grows dark. Every single one of them turned their heads to look at him as they  
passed. Their glance, though hidden behind their bone masks, seemed to dissect his  
soul.

Murtuufelik, the Happy Dead, was there to meet them. Almost second-dead himself,  
he could nonetheless taste the slave master's fear.

"My lords... it honors us greatly that you would grace us with your presence." he  
greeted them with a deep bow. "Pray speak and let us serve you to the utmost of our  
ability. We offer you our tribute, and our most sincere thanks for your benevolence."

"Cease your mewling, fool." When one spoke, it was as if all of them spoke. Their  
voice held an odd echo to it. "There is much to displease us about your tributes... I  
wonder why we tolerate your presence this much."

One of the skull-faced figures parted from the group and slid closer to Murtuufelik. It  
loomed over him, and the slaver master shook as he fought to remain where he was.  
Fear was an acid taste, and the man reeked of it.

"You minnow through your flock and offer us the very dregs among them. This does  
not please me. You set aside the strongest to preserve your own band of thugs.  
Ahhh..." The figure bent at the waist, and leaned forward as if to peck at him. "The  
strength, the fruit of the soul. You debase them. All that you touch. Indeed, you are  
detestable to me."

"B-but I... my lord. I mean no disrespect. Please, take your pick among any I have in  
this camp." He meant it utterly, even among his most loyal of followers.

The skull-faced figure leaned even closer, seeming to defy the pull of gravity. Its  
cloak began to writhe and shrink into itself, tightening into bumps and curves. The  
next words were a sibilant hiss. "The proper words are... my lady." There could be no  
mistaking it. The black cloth clung to skin, like ebony nakedness.

The slaver master had never been hesitant to partake of the flesh, and it seemed to  
pain him just to keep his eyes up from the obvious points of her nipples. The mask  
remain the same, however. Oval, white, two black drop-like shapes for eyes and a  
grin of sharpened teeth. That was enough; those hollow masks were something  
beyond his reach. He would be suicidal to even think of touching anything. The blank  
pits where eyes should be examined him to the very core of his being, leaving icy  
sting where it passed.

He was overjoyed when she looked away, to the prisoner up on the cross.

She drifted over to him. The prisoner could barely lift his head, but still showed no  
fear. "How long has he been up here?" she asked aside. Not even Murtuufelik knew.

She made a mental note to punish his continued inadequacy later. "So long. Oh! So  
long. " Her voice was crooning. She touched his chest, playing around the deepening  
cavity. Then, she put in one finger. Mask eyepits flashed a deep red, and the prisoner  
heaved in pain. Right there where his heart should be pulsed a counter blue glow  
around the black-coated digit, pushing it back.

He could feel her smile.

"And still you resist... you could have died, you could have ended it." She jammed her  
whole right fist in, up to the wrist, and the hollow in him flared in response. He  
screamed. "What else? You can be free of death, of the lie that is life..." She  
withdrew; her fist smoking, the black coating bubbling with heat. "And still, you  
refuse."

She paced around him, drinking in his beaten frame. Her eyes still glowed and in her  
sight there was still the soul clinging around the growing hollow. "Who are you, that  
you must be?" her whiper drifted into his ear.

He wanted to speak, but his the saliva in his mouth had long since caked it shut. In  
his mind, he still struggled... ' I am... I am...'

"The husband of a murdered wife, the father of a murdered son. How mundane." she  
finished for him. "Do you not understand the treshold upon which you stand?" The  
masked woman tilted his chin up. "Look at me." She shook it, forcing him into  
awareness. "Look at me."

Her chest, bounteous as it was, started to cave inwards. It hollowed out between her  
breasts, into a hole that he could see through. "It will not destroy you. Is that it? Is  
that your fear? It is not the second death, far from it!

Let it complete yourself."

It was as if a sound passed between the cavity through her heart and the incomplete  
hollow in him; resonating, singing to each other. He could feel the truth in her words.  
He would never feel pain ever again. He would not fear being reborn. This, was true  
immortality.

He grimaced. Almost there! He forced himself from the brink, once again. The memory  
of the memory of the memory, even it would be lost from him. He also know that he  
would cease being human. The hunger knew nothing but itself.

"I... no." he croaked out. "I am... I am..."

She seemed to grow, the folds of her cloak shooting up to bring her truly level to him.  
"You were a husband, once. A father, once." She went to his manhood, and drew it  
out from the sun-hardened loincloth. He was too tired to feel shame, that even  
through it all he could respond. She pressedherself to him, her every curve fitting his  
perfectly. "You can be again."

A distance away, Muurtufelik made some sort of strangled sound.

"Perhaps this mask is not to your liking?" It began to flow as liquid, receding to reveal  
a face that was heart-shaped, unblemished, her eyes made up with kohl. It was an  
unnatural beauty, sharp and perfect.

"We are the Hollows, and the hollows must be filled. You will be great among us,  
adding to our strength. I can sense it." She began to grind against him. "The hunger,  
let it loose. Let it first devour the useless relics in you. And this post cannon hold you.  
This band of slavers, the carrion-feeders among men, cannot stop you. I... and I...  
will not resist you. Is it not simple?

Iss it not ssatissfying?"

Her touch was draining, so full of need. There was no heat, even as she writhed in  
sensous langour upon him. The Happy Dead gaped at the sight; the other Hollows  
seemed uninterested, standing rooted in place.

The prisoner began to shake , his very essence tumbling into chaos. The hollow  
woman pulled away, her lower body arching like a plant stem.

"I..." Minutes passed. Hours? It could have been mere seconds or entire lifetimes. He  
stopped at last, tired beyond measure. "I..."

He has lost something, something he can never take back. But still...

"You refuse..." she ground out, amazed. "You have no name. You have no idea.  
Worthless! Worthless! Even feral Hollows have more than you." She drew close and  
licked the hardened blood off his brow; her tounge was rasping and long. Raw scraped  
flesh remained where it passed. "Should I name you, then?" She then bit into his neck,  
drawing blood. She licked at it, spreading up to his neck and cheek.

"Let be known that I am the Ibwaloh, the Nightwood, and that it is I name you in a  
tongue older than man." Her words were meant for him and him alone.

"Yuukruniyh."

There was no thunder, no dramatic shift in the wind. The prisoner felt as if hammered.  
Such a simple thing, already he could feel its consequences growing to vast and  
unforseen proportions.

She turned away. "I will return, and the light of your soul will be added to our power.  
One way or another." To the Muurtufelik she barked out "Bring our your tribute, you  
waste of spiritual essence! The hollow must be filled!"

The slaver leader hastened to comply, and from within a group of slaves were brought  
out. They were pushed forward at spearpoint. The gates were shut behind them. Only  
Murtuufelik remained outside, as a reminder of what awaited any failure, any rebellion.

The hollows sprang at them, shrieking in mad glee, and thus the slaves realized that  
they were not to be sent out as servants.

They were food.

The weak were food for the strong; literally, as the hollows engorged upon their  
purest spirit, tearing flesh to let it loose. The prisoner watched, as the black forms  
bulged and grew. Colors began to appear, bands of red or purple, decorative and like  
the warning bands of deadly snakes.

Ibwaloh went to the huddle and pulled out one of the feeding hollows, easily tossing  
aside its bulk. She pulled from the pile one struggling young woman. Her mask was still  
off, and the slave felt some hope at being held by someone looking so human, so  
beautiful. When the hollow kissed her she offered no struggle. Not even when her skin  
began to collapse on itself, her soul-body decaying rapidly. Her identity was absorbed  
into the hunger of the Hollow; true souls, like energy, could not be created or  
destroyed. They could be changed or exhausted, though.

And his hunger raged to be sated as well. The prisoner hated it, but yearned for it.  
The hole in his chest began to pulse in constriction, like a mouth gaping for it.

The hollows roared when they were through feeding. It was ground-level thunder,  
breaking the air. Ibwaloh's cry was piercing like a hawk's. Both the prisoner and  
Murtuufelik shivered as it pierced to even their bones.

"Let this well serve as a reminder just what power bestrides this land of the dead. I  
shall return, my body servant." she told the slaver master. "You should pray that next  
time your offerings prove much less of a disappointment."

And then, they were gone.

The sun was still high in the sky, the skies still blue. Everything seemed bleaker yet in  
their passing. Activity within the camp was slow to restart, the slavers having lost  
their appetite for even the habitual feasting, beating and rapings.

The man who named himself the Happy Dead slowly walked over to the crucified man  
who still clung to his decaying ideal of humanity. "She named you? Did she not?" he  
asked hoarsely. "What did she say?"

Silence.

"What did she say?"

The prisoner could feel the name etching into himself; like an adder's poison. Names  
had power in the afterlife. It was starting to blacken the edges of his resolve. He  
knew instinctively what it meant, however. Knowing also helped him.

For it meant He Who Resists.

Murtuufelik repeated his question. Growing frustrated, he backhanded the nameless  
prisoner. "ANSWER ME!"

If he could laugh though, he would have. The slaver's ministrations had too taught  
him the limits of his own body. It was a strong blow that snapped his neck. He was  
effectively paralyzed. All pain receptors had lost connection. It would heal, he would  
live. After all, how could he have survived thus long without a functioning heart? The  
ways of the dead were mysterious. Anything that was not immidiately fatal could be  
recovered from.

I.. am.

And that was enough, for the moment. That was reason enough to endure.

-  
-  
-  
-

Time passed. The dead came and went.

The hollow in him did not grow, but it no longer shrank either. Skin around the pit had  
risen and hardened to rock-like consistency, etched with blue veins. The hunger was  
stronger than ever, but he no longer required food or drink. Despite his and the  
slavers' fears, the Hollows did not return. The demand for slaves, for work and for  
devouring, did not slacken. It increased, even; which brought speculation. The  
harvested dead were an easy food source for the Hollows, of which they paid for in  
goods and coin, even things they could bring from the mortal realm. To rely on this  
might mean... that the Hollows could no longer hunt so easily.

He garnered this from snatches of conversation. He had been nailed up at the gates  
for so long that people have grown to ignore his presence. Even the slaver master no  
longer thought of that one corpse that still dares to stand in his presence; even if  
upright only by rigor mortis as it may be. The lands of the dead were vast, without  
limits some even say. Far beyond, where the Hollows come, things are happening. A  
war, some say. There was a power that can match the Hollows, and might even prove  
worse than them.

They knew this the night, when for an instant all was bright, and something slashed  
the moon. It was as if a great spear reached up to the heavens and bit out a long  
wound out of distant luna. The gash could be plainly seen when it is full; it did not  
mar the surface much, but everyone knew somehow that the depth and breadth of  
that gash would more than carve out a mountain range or two. That was power that  
could cleave the world.

The day came when the slavers brought a different prisoner in; a woman, dark and  
naked, bound in masses of chains, ropes, and surrounded by guards. She was a  
Nubian, comely and proud; and for once Murtuufelik looked upon an unshorn female  
form with distaste. It reminded her of that female Hollow; not so much in the color of  
her skin but in that untouchable self-confidence.

"Who are you?" he had to ask.

Even under the weight of her bindings she managed to seem rigidly unbowed. "I am  
Alebe... " she said through her soul-leeching bands. "Death Guard of Tutorus Primari...  
an Anima Veredus... and.. and you.. you!" She struggled. She wanted to spit but  
she had been deliberately starved through thr journey. "You are a tool of Invisus  
Cavum, the hated Hollows." She snarled at him. "You are a traitor to your kind, and  
your punishment will soon be at hand...!"

The slaver master sniffed. "I see the presumption of Roma reaches out even to here."  
Many times had he heard such declarations, oaths sworn to Gods that will not answer.

"Rome? I am not from Rome." was her nonplussed reply.

"Then where are you from, hm?" Beside the woman was a sword, chained up almost to  
the extent she was. "A soul cutter... so you truly are no mere dead. Where... did you  
get this?"

Alebe turned to the open gate, and the people gathered there. "Hear me, souls who  
yearn for freedom! There is a city to the East, a fortress against tyranny, where you  
need not fear the touch of Hollows or the leash of slavery." She strained at her  
bonds, sending it all jingling to punctuate her speech. "A place where we all can live  
in peace, where we may fight for our right to be! It is a true Societas Animus; a soul  
society where we can be free!"

Jeers and disgusted shouts met her declaration. It hardly fazed her. The prisoner,  
whose sense toward falsehoods had been honed to an exacting degree, drank in her  
words. He could feel the hollow crack, just a fraction.

"For hundreds of years, it has stood against the Hollows, for hundreds of years we  
have made war. And we are winning! Take heart, for your salvation is at hand! Soon  
our armies will push the Hollows from this land and back into their foul dark lairs, along  
with their dark pharaoh!"

Murtuufelik slapped her. "Your delusions will not help you, girl. Put her inside! I will  
beat this nonsense out personally."

As they wheeled her wagon in, the prisoner felt something pierce the nothingness  
where his heart used to be. The poison...! It feeds upon hope! It was seeping into  
the cracks in his hollow self. It was pain even beyond anything he had ever felt  
before; and for the first time darkness took him and clad his mind in oblivion.

-  
-  
-  
-

Much later, he awoke, to the sound of someone singing. Or trying to mumble, at least.  
Long-unused muscles strained, but he managed to turn his head. In a new crucifix  
beside him, was nailed the soul hunter Alebe. She was bloody and bruised all over.

"I still testify to thee, my great, good lord." she whispered. She could barely breathe  
through the big mass of mangled flesh that was the left half of her face and most of  
her lips. "Your soldier keeps her faith, and awaits your return."

They probably expect her to turn, he thought; an offering to the Hollows. If what she  
said was true, then it would be a worthy sacrifice.

"I testify to thee..." she continued.

The prisoner wondered how long it would take, for that to become simply; I. Though  
bound in otherwordly flesh through the days and nights he had let his mind wander.  
Sometimes he could even believe he was flying, and seeing the endless expanse of the  
afterlife.

He blinked. He no longer realized it, but his body could heal at an amazing rate, faster  
even than he can get damaged. It didn't strike him as unusual that he could see her  
clearly, even though it should have been years since he last opened his eyes.

But he could see... the city she spoke of. It was massive; walls of white, buildings  
stacked upon each other, forming towering edifices. It was cut into a mountain, and  
behind it was a green sea, very much the dark waters of the Mediterranean. The  
pang of such a sight. It was home. Where he was when he was alive did not matter.

That was home. It had everything he ever expected.

Except... the memory of a memory lingered. Two things. Two things he still needed.

".. awaits your return..."

-

"Who will return?"

It was days later. It surprised them both. Was that really his voice? Sometimes he  
believed he could speak with mind alone.

"You... you live?" Alebe breathed out.

"I... die." was his weak reply. "There is nothing left for me."

"Even in death, hope must fight. You are... strong indeed." she said back. She was a  
warrior, a swordswoman and veteran of many battles. She almost broke at the  
tortures and humilitions theslavers inflicted upon her, but she clung on to the  
knowledge that HE will never fail. He will never abandon his soldiers. That a man,  
friendless and alone, could be out for so long and still keep himself together was  
unheard of.

Then, she saw the gaping hole in his chest, and sucked in her breath. "By the gods..."  
she gasped out. "You... you are no man. You are no Hollow. What are you...?"

"I... am." was all he could give.

"You must in terrible pain."

If he could shrug, he would have. "What is pain? What is time? There is nothing;  
and... I am."

"Then... I shall call you Thou, for you are who you are." If she could smile, she would  
have. The nameless prisoner flinched. A Name. He felt that. Oh, the poison was not  
liking that at all.

The Death Guard were the opposite of Hollows, he learned. They were a recent  
innovation. There were people gifted with the ability to oppose Hollows, to send forth  
the light of their soul to pierce their darkness. For unknown millenia they had fought  
piecemeal, each seeking their own path to power, protecting that which they chose  
to value in that life past life. In the end most of them were simply overwhelmed in a  
Hollow tide.

For the first time, they had organized, enough to push back the hungering hordes. It  
was something glorious, worthy of dedicating her afterlife to, or so she said.

Man must protect man, no one else can.

"... who are you waiting for?" again was asked.

Alebe took some time to answer. Even as she was, she was wary of being overheard.  
It was the deep of night, and even the sentries were asleep. "The general. Strategos  
Unas." she said. "He was the first among the generals, the finest among the soldiers of  
the Societas. The foul Hollows sought to ambush us, but I am confident he has  
survived." She looked up. "And if he has survived, then he is sure to seek me out. He  
has promised it to all who follow in his tread." She breathed out her words, reverent.  
"He will never leave us behind."

The prisoner sighed. "...to be so sure... why?" He closed his eyes, suddenly weary.  
"... he could be defeated."

"He is never defeated...!" was her quick reply. "Never!"

Zealotry fatigued the prisoner. He drooped and attempted to go back to sleep. He  
tried pulling at the threads of his mind instead of sending it out.

It worked.

-  
-  
-  
-

And thus it was that he had no forewarning until once certain dawn. Alebe awoke and  
began to shout. "He is here! Hail, that which writes of moonlight! Ave Strategos!" Her  
voice cracked, blood forced up her throat, and still she had to make it known.  
"FREEDOM! FREEDOM TO THE LOST SOULS! SECOND DEATH TO THOSE WHO BETRAY  
HUMANITY!"

The camp rustled awake. Bowmen got back up to the walls. Swords and shields were  
brought out. A bleary-eyed and annoyed Murtuufelik stomped out the palisade.  
"What in... what are you going on about, woman?!" he growled out.

"He has indeed come, without fail." She was looking at the distance. "There will be no  
escape, for our general himself has come to bestow justice upon the weak."

That statement offended him on several levels simultaneously. He slapped Alebe, but  
then the warrior-woman merely began laughing at him. Murtuufelik was about to gut  
her, when he realized that the prisoner he had so long ignored had his eyes open.  
Those eyes, dark as the deepest pits, pinned him in place. He remained there, frozen.

Past the bend and a small rise in the terrain a single figure walked, the sun directly  
behind him. His hair seemed on fire. The archers readied their bows, but the light  
made aiming difficult; and it was after all but one man. As he approached it was  
revealed perhaps not even that. He was still young; still at the most vibrant of his  
years, his features sharp but not unkind.

He stopped near the gates. He was clad in a white tunic over scale-mailed bronze  
armor, Grecian in style. Slung behind him was a large... sword, if it could even be  
called that. It resembled nothing less than a man-sized meat cleaver; a glorified  
butcher's tool.

"This?!" the slaver master scoffed. "This is your great general? This young fool looks  
barely able to weild that gigantic mistake that is his weapon." He hefted his own soul  
cutter, an elegant straight blade, of what seemed to be gleaming steel. In life,  
humanity had yet to pass the bronze age, but in death a soul cutter was not made of  
metal. Everything was made of spirit particles.

"Know that your deeds have returned to you, foul Hollow tool." Alebe continued.

-  
-

"Yes... yes it has."

-  
-

From within the shadows emerged lithe and black-garbed Ibwaloh and her retinue. The  
Nightwood Hollow had her mask on, grimly grinning. "Go ahead, servant. Ask our guest  
for his name."

Where the young general stood wreathed in light, the Hollow woman draped darkness  
over herself. The slaver master somehow knew he was standing between something  
monumental, but he he had to ask. He had to know. "Who.. are you?"

"Does it matter?" the young general asked back.

He nodded.

"Then you may call me Oris Paulum Nova, Tutorus." He shrugged. "No one of any real  
importance."

"That much is true..." hissed the Nightwood. "Humanitas vivo, humanitas morti. People  
live, people die. You, like many others before you, shall die. Know now that your  
efforts will be cast into the dust of time. Life is lie, the natural state of man is death!"  
She rattled her jaws."In it the Hollow shall endure, the hollow must be filled!"

Oris shook his head sadly. "The hollow is blind and crippled. It seeks immortality and  
finds itself chained to base desires. You gave up humanity for bestial urges?" He had  
seen even the best of mankind reduced to such a tragic waste. "Immortality is meant  
for better things than that! There is the power of humanity!"

"Our power, soul hunter! OURS! Ours alone! We have no need of your tricks, your  
pleas to a lesser part. You limit yourself, and for that we shall reign supreme once  
more." An engorged tongue flicked between dread bare teeth. "A fine trap, a fine trap  
we have laid. You did come here alone, where stand the one being who could equal  
you. Our seers are no less capable than yours."

Ibwaloh slid over to the nameless prisoner. "Yuukruniyh..." she hissed. "Get up and  
walk. I know you are aware.

You have had the power all along..."

"No!" screamed Alebe. "Get away from him, filthy Hollow! He is better than you! He  
does not need your tainted power."

She chuckled darkly, ignoring the powerless death guard. Without her soul cutter, she  
was useless. "You.. surprise me, even now you resist. But can you hear it now? His  
power. My power. You stand in between. Mine is pure, mine is true.

Awaken, Yuukruniyh..."

His enhanced senses proved his downfall. The odd gift of immortality given to him  
forced his soul to leak out of him like sieve. Between man and hollow there was only  
self-destructive indecision.

"Are... are you a god?" he asked the bright apparition. Who will save him?

"There are no gods, not here." was the sad reply.

It pulled from within. His mantra began to falter. "I... i... ah ah aaaaaaggh!" He  
screamed, losing the final thread of his mortality. White liquid began to pour from  
behind his neck, dripping upwards to cover his face. The hunger howled.

Ibwaloh laughed. She extended her left arm, her fingers sharpening into claws. Her  
grasp shot out, lengthening viscous and ink-black; to pierce Murtuufelik's chest. The  
Happy Dead jerked back as she extracted his heart. He walked for a few steps,  
disbelieving the bloody hole in his chest... toppled, and died.

"Yess... my body servant served me well. Eat, my brother. My lover. My creation."  
She whispered, cheek to cheek. The hollow crushed the organ in her palm, and its  
blood coalesced into a single dark marble, beating in dim purple glow. "Eat this black  
soul and be remade!"

She popped it into his mouth, open in an expression of torment.

Alebe strained in her place. "No..! No! General, no! Please, save him!" He just stood  
there. The builder of Soul Society, protector of man... why is he just standing there?  
"General!"

The prisoner screamed until he could scream no more, as the mask covered his face  
and began to solify. The crucifix behind him burned, and shadows rose from below to  
clothe him. He dropped and writhed there on the sandy road.

"Yuukruniyh...?"

Darkness pooled into one spot. The Resisting Hollow slowly rose to his feet, tall and  
without peer. His skull mask seemed to have four eyes, all glowing red. He opened his  
maw and shrieked. It was an air-splitting sound, sending tree boughs shaking.

Ibwaloh added hers, a counterpoint of triumph.

"Why..." The general... failed. Alebe felt everything leave her. That good man, gone.  
The light of his soul, extinguished forever. After all her torments, there was nothing  
that served to give it meaning. He had... failed! Without him, then all is lost. Between  
her breasts, an abcesss began to form.

Yuukruniyh continued to scream. And scream. And scream. He began to flail around  
wildly, his arms like whips, tearing up whatever it touched - soil, rock, walls.

"Stop this! Stop you nee-" the words were lost as a wild swing caught Ibwaloh and  
sent her flying.

The new Hollow kneeled and began to beat its face into the ground, in a fierce parody  
of prayer. It smashed its face into the grit again and again; until cracks began to form  
on the mask; until blood began to seep out from the cracks; and until it broke utterly.

The inky, vile darkness fled.

"No! NO!" She floated back into the clearing, her cloak twisting like vines, trailing  
behind her bouyed in a wind unfelt by others. "You stupid, stupid man! You filthy,  
filthy MORTAL! You wasted it, all of it! All those years, all those souls fed to the  
Dreaming." The female Hollow grew to monstrous proportions. "How dare you! HOW  
DARE A WORTHLESS BEING LIKE YOU?!"

"I... am." was his last word.

He made some sort of half-grimace, half-smile; all relief. He let himself be taken by  
the darkness of unconsciousness.

"I believed in you..." said the young general, walking closer. He smiled at the sleeping  
man, who was once again whole. Even if thewords were unheard, he felt he owed it  
to the man for letting him suffer. Even Alebe... oh, the things he now could allow for  
the greater good! Sometimes he wondered about himself. But for once in a long time,  
he believed again; and did so thoroughly in someone else. It was in much the same  
way many others placed their faith upon him. "Navitaserii, that fate-touched child, my  
seer, showed me the worst of what could have been; and once more my faith in  
humanity has proven itself true."

He turned to the pack of Hollows, his smile gone. "And my hatred of Hollows again  
justified!" He unslung his inconveniently massive sword. "Light my way! SCRIPTOR  
LUNAE!"

Ibwaloh screeched. "Not yet, protector! Not yet!" Her cloak broke out into pointed,  
grasping branches. "You have not won yet! Convenio sssero! Combine! Give  
yourselves to me...!" Her darkness reached out to her attendants, who struggled but  
were easily devoured in its depths. The shadows blossomed, from every nook and  
cranny. Whatever it touched was consumed; souls in blood and death fed her in one  
massive gulp.

The screams all mixed together, and blood flowed as a river out from the camp...  
slaver and slave, in the end nothing more than just victims.

She lunged for him, her infinite darkness full of barbs. Every shadow, even his own,  
was hers. Oris Paulum leapt up, impossibly high to someone in living flesh, to evade a  
grasping pit devouring from beneath. It even managed to take his left sandal. He  
scowled at the unexpected speed.

He slashed downward, the tip of his blade glowing a bright blue and shooting out in  
mid-swing; indeed like moonlight, and speared the Hollow's weaving form.

She roared. She stood gargantuan, with six different masked heads and undulating  
bodily shapes in the folds of her cloak. Each mask opened, and shot out red beams of  
concentrated fury. "Burn in eternity! Cauldron of pain...!" Ibwaloh said in between  
attacks.

The young general evaded nimbly, blocking the blasts now and then with the flat of  
his blade. The hits, though resisted, had enough force to push him back; the last  
unavoidable one forced him to his knees and set a rock digging into the flesh of his  
heel. He limped out of another wild lunge. The merest touch would flay his skin.

"Your destruction! It is! Written in Moonlight!" he shouted, and against his sword's  
attack there could be no defense. For such a big monster, Ibwaloh was surprisingly  
nimble. Continuing to battle in such a way could take them hours before either could  
do any appreciable damage.

The Hollow remembered she had two left unabsorbed. Could there be enough power  
in the failure? She saw that while the mask was gone from the prisoner's face, he still  
kept on a night-black cloak.

Perhaps not a total failure after all...

The girl- a living shield! Of more immidiate use. The moment's distraction would cost  
her, however... when she reached for Alebe she found the young general already  
perched on top of the crucifix, his large curving blade held two-handed over his head.

"I know your power, Hollow." Air was forced out, a whirlwind around those that still  
remained in the blasted battleground. The Nubian death guard could not look up fully,  
and only saw what seemed to be utter shock in the Grand Hollow's many faces.  
"Hide your face, Obscuro Lunae!"

The one who introduced himself as Oris, wanderer, general and founder of the Death  
Guard, grinned a skeletal grin; all skin and flesh gone from his head. Bluish fire burned  
inside his eye sockets.

"And I do not miss it!" He slashed upwards his blade sparking along the edges with  
balefire. "Separate the firmament! Discuro, GLORIA LUNAE!!"

The heavens broke apart.

And there so suddenly it was brightest in the day.

The time of no shadows.

-  
-  
-  
-

He awoke on an open wagon. The clouds floated past a sky infinitely high and crystal  
clear. It seemed all so bright. Enough to blind. A dark shape broke the view, and it  
took a second or so for his eyes to adjust back to the reduced light and distance.

"Are thou well?" asked Alebe. "Can thou hear me?"

"Thou..." He blinked and took a deep breath. It felt good to have fully-functional lungs  
again. He also felt slightly cold from the breeze, and drew in tighter in his black cloak.  
"Me? It would be confusing if you were to continue using that to call me..." He  
coughed, still unused to speaking. "who... in a crowd, would be thee?"

"Then... what should I call you?"

"She called me, he who resists... I cannot really pronounce the word. Is there  
anything left for me to resist?"

"You are who you are, not as your actions dictate but what your heart reveals." A  
voice said from above his head.

"Is a name that important, then? Must it fit this reborn self? How should I be known  
to others?"

"I do not put much stock in names, or in being overly concerned with the opinion of  
others."

He was no longer a prisoner. He wiggled his fingers and moved his legs. Wood and  
nails did not keep him there. It was his own shackled will. He touched his chest.  
There was no longer any hollow there, but... he had a hard time finding the beat of  
his heart.

"Then, let me be called He who Accepts, or at least Accipius Serena."

"A good name, very good. I will have it put on the Dead Book as soon as we arrive."

Accipius closed his eyes. He could still see his rescuer, his youthful face tinged with  
confusion, travel and salt-bleached hair shining under the sun. He seemed simply so  
young. So hopeful. So curious. He had a face like that. Like a son, out on his own for  
the first time. His name meant wanderer, signifying little.

"You were Magnos Aleksandros, were you not, general?" A protector of man. General  
beyond measure. Who could inspire such loyalty?

He was dead! He supposed it should not really come as a surprise. As a Roman, he  
was raised on the legend of Alexander the Great.

"I... do not recognize... that name." replied the dead Strategos. Accipius saw only  
darkness, but had a distinct feeling the younger-looking man was annoyed.

He laughed.

Hoh, gods! It felt good to laugh again.

Perhaps there would be use for him in this Soul Society after all. A husband of a wife  
that lives on, a son that lives on. In the purge the souls consumed by Hollows are  
finally freed. There was hope yet... this land seemed built upon hope.

He went back to sleep, and awaited what may come.

-

-

-

-

------------------------------------------------------------------

Yep, I know, it's full of gramatically (and outright) incorrect latin (plus the occasional mispelled english). All I have in a pocket dictionary and I just wanted to convey the overall theme quickly. It's nothing more than a skeleton draft and will likely remain so for some time. I know people who will -stab- me if I stop working on that other fic over there.

Sorry. Anything to remedy this failure of education would be very appreciated.

-------------------------------------------------------------------


	2. Chapter 1: The State of Man part1

The supreme joke of the universe was not the delusion of mere mortals upon the  
existence of greater beings who care about them, nor of their own relative  
importance in the grand scheme of things. This natural insult to all living  
beings was that Death should be little different from Life. Every hope and  
preconcieved notion crumbles in the realization that there will be no peace  
beyond the grave.

Be it on the battlefield or sick in bed, someone's demise is a transformation.  
That spark leaves the flesh and is remade, in a land beyond time, into the  
shape it desires to wear.

There is a sun the gives warmth, there is the ground the nourishes; but  
that is all the comfort given to the dead. The soul is but energy, seeking  
form. All in the afterlife is that selfsame energy, molded to the needs of  
those who retain their identity.

It is the supreme irony; that Life is the only thing they have ever known, so  
how could they expect the AfterLife to be any different? They made it into  
the familiar; in hardship, in pain, and in the struggle that gives meaning  
to their eternity.

Even the dead may die.

This is perhaps the greatest legacy of humanity. Bit by bit, they have built  
it. Since the beginning of time, those that died added themselves into this  
construct. They live again, and die again. Some are even born. Each soul  
seeking expression leaves behind a piece of itself. Forests beyond sight,  
mountains beyond recognition, and and endless sea to mystify... it is not an  
easy land, but at very least it was interesting. They have sown crops and  
built cities. They have raised armies and left pennants standing upon the  
ground. This afterlife is humanity's own; by their own hands and their own  
hearts they have made it so.

The greatest power of humanity is in its hope. Likewise, all the beasts in  
the jungle retreat from humanity's greatest enemy - humanity itself. The  
soul is power. In the afterlife, man must feed upon man.

Those without hope become greater than man, become the demons they desire.  
These hollow hearts are not satisfied with the trappings of life, the limits  
of the shape they wear. There is power there, if they were to reach for it.  
Power to reshape the world, power to break through even the barrier between  
life and death. There are no gods, not there. There is nothing to stop  
them. Without hope is to likewise be without fear. When one has lost  
everything, one is Hollow... and at that blank slate of existence, anything  
becomes possible.

Packs of them roamed the lands of the restless dead . Even the mightiest of  
creatures, animals that had strongest survival instinct crossing over into  
become a crude soul, were not worthy of their notice. The Tyrant Lizard King  
flees even so. Feral Hollows desire the only prey worth stalking. With every  
human soul consumed, they become more powerful. They turn on each other,  
greedy for every scrap of soul power. They may combine into something even  
more than the sum of their tainted souls.

The strongest indeed become as the gods themselves, with the power to  
rekindle the afterlife... or burn it down. In the face of such overpowering  
hunger man seems destined to destruction.

The peril to man is man itself, so must salvation come from within. They  
cried out for help, and something answered. From within it percieves. From  
without it achieves. The need given form, hope turned into a weapon. A few  
souls were powerful enough on their own to manifest a power separate from  
that of the Hollow.

In the afterlife the languages of man ceases to become a barrier. In that  
one shared tongue, they called it _Gammoluth Akselor_. The _**soul cutter**._

-

-

-

-

-

-

Chapter One

-

It was was considered a minor settlement, but it was easily the largest he had  
encountered thus far. The most impressive thing about it was its town wall.  
It was massive, shining white in the sun, an edifice of carefully-hewn adobe  
bricks completely encircling the town. It limited their expansion, but that was  
deemed well worth it.

The gates were likewise large, reinforced by thick studded bands of bronze.  
They were closed, and he stood there for some time just staring at them.  
Eventually the sentries noticed him.

"Hey, you there!" one yelled down. He held a small bow at the ready. He saw  
below a solitary figure, dusty from the road. The tunic was stained, but under  
it was a well-used shirt of scale broze mail. The sentry frowned. "What do you  
want here?"

"I want to enter the town" the traveler shouted back. "Could you open the  
gates?"

"Are you a fool? There are Hollows about. Ten copper hyas to enter!" He  
gestured to a large basket to his left, made out of wicker branches and hanging  
off a pulley.

"What? What if I do not have that much? You would just abandon a poor traveler  
out here?" He jabbed at the air. "Where is your humanity, man?"

It was as he had expected. "Then begone, if you have nothing to do but waste  
my time!" Stupid fools. They would not risk the gates for one person, or even  
an entire caravan. "If you value those copper coins higher than your life,  
then so be it!"

The visitor shook his head sadly. "Lower the basket. I will pay."

"Tch." The sentry was disappointed. This was the part of the job he didn't  
like. The boredom was tolerable. Physical effort was supposed to better  
prepare them for a hollow attack, but he didn't have to like it. There was  
a clever system of ropes and pulleys that simplified the task. The wall  
guards pushed at a carousel to wind the rope back up.

Once on top, the sentry held out his palm. "Ten hyas, or I pull this lever."

The traveler looked young, in his mid-twenties. He was tall, his hair bleached  
a fading blond. There was something large and cloth-wrapped on his back. He  
also looked indignant, but had no choice. He paid.

"In the log, Kulnoh." his guard partner said aside. "Put it in the log..."

"Shut up, Ijis! Fine! Fourteenth hour, brought up a traveler, at cost of ten  
copper hyas. Consider that damn thing marked! Psh, like you don't skim from it  
too." As the traveler stepped on to the wall, the sentry loomed threateningly  
over him. "Listen, boy. The slightest trouble and back out you go. I've been up  
on this wall for fourty years and I'll be damned if I get blamed for letting  
something in that shouldn't be in. Do you understand me?"

"I understand you." was the calm reply.

"Know this too, if you cause too much trouble we won't bother throwing you  
out for the Hollows to feed on you. Some us weild the akselor." added in  
the other gate guard. "Soul cutters."

"So welcome to the town of Lasurnu." the accosting sentry finished, with a  
wide feral grin. It has hardly reassuring. "Have a nice stay."

The traveler climbed down the wooden ladder. At the bottom, he was met by  
another guard; this one weilding a spear and looking bored. Next to him  
was a desk, behind that was a scribe, who incredibly managed to look even  
more bored. He, the traveler, was looking quite bewildered. Beyond was the  
main street, and more people in one place than he had ever seen in... a  
very long time. There was purposeful intensity there that he missed, the  
unceasing movements of humanity through history. The dead... lived, to the  
best of their ability, bringing with them the most vibrant portions of  
existence.

"Name?" asked the scribe. The guard beside him very slightly tightened the  
left-handed hold on his spear.

"Does it matter?" he replied with shrug.

"No, but I must ask. This is a town where we know everyone's names." It was  
insular, a survival trait, for walled settlements were islands set in a sea  
of aimless violence. "You have to be part of our Dead Book if you want to  
stay." There were various mystical processes associated with it.

The traveler hesitated. Names held power. The Dead Books were a self-  
maintaining piece of afterlife law. A name once written in becomes part of  
its owner; and could even be used against the one who is known by it.  
"My name..." An expression of frantic loss passed across his face. "Well,  
some call me Oris Paulum Nova." A merchant he ran across named him that.  
It sounded rather pretentious to him. The way it rolls off the tongue,  
rather ornate. He didn't know the language, but could understand it when  
directed at him. It tasted new. He accepted that as one of the quirks of  
being dead.

The scribe nodded. Little wanderer? What a peasant-like name. The Dead  
Book accepted it as a true name. He nodded and bade the visitor through. He  
seemed harmless enough. It never entered into his mind how, alone, this  
traveler could have made it through the old roads and forests where the  
Hollows lurked.

Thus was the state of humanity in the afterlife. All of them huddled in  
isolated frightened masses, as monsters of all kinds paced the shadows past  
their firelights. The protector of man was alone against such an timeless  
bane.

The guard handed over a slip of papyrus with his name written in unfamiliar  
script. He understood any spoken language, it seems, but the written word  
was something else.

Oris was was easily recognizable as someone who slumped as he walked  
through the streets. "I am hungry and I have no money..." he moaned. He was  
of course, ignored. Poor young fools were entirely too common. He was dead,  
damn it! Why must it be so difficult to be dead? He did not remember doing  
anything particularly evil; rather he remembered very little at all. His  
gaze flicked around, looking for donkeys or any other beasts of burden.  
"Perhaps I can shovel some excrement for some coin..."

He was getting quite good at that.

------

Arila Ulu Pelkathos remembered how she died. She died young, alone, of  
starvation. It was an unwritten rule in the afterlife that finding one's  
family again was all but impossible. This is the reason many formed  
secondary family groups; bonded in everything but blood. It was likely  
that she wouldn't go with her birth family even if she found them again.

She grew up in the charge of a Dacian named Pelkathos, so took his name.  
He had a wife, who died again ("baya", reborn, in the vernacular) in the  
journey to this city-state of Lasurnu along the river Sidhaas. Putting  
up a tavern was hard, but they somehow managed. It got easier as she got  
older and developed height and curves.

She died without knowing her cultural group but her bronzed skin, straight  
hair and expressive almond eyes hinted at a life ending early in the middle  
east. Most likely it was in the scarred reaches of what had been the Persian  
Empire. Dead souls once past maturity simply aged slower in the afterlife,  
and that was making her more and more uneasy. She had a dancer's lithe form,  
a bloodline specifically encouraged to give pleasure to the sight and the  
touch. It was bad enough that she attracted the coarse notice of patrons,  
but as she bent over to wipe tables at night she was reminded that her  
father was really nothing but a stranger she chooses to live with. When  
the gates were shut for an extended period of time, such as what was going  
on, he tended to partake of their own brews.

She tried hard to forget a few drunken gropes, nothing had happened after  
all. He was fortunately too drunk to succeed at anything. He seemed suitably  
contrite, wailing for forgiveness the day after. She smiled at the patrons,  
exchanged harmless flirting here and there, slapped wandering fingers... and  
through it all it was his eyes she felt. The air was growing thick, musky...  
it was like her senses had gone hyper-sensitive, she was finding it hard to  
breathe.

Then, it was gone.

"Out!" yelled Pelkathos, his brown beard quivering. "We don't serve your  
kind here... " He made shooing sweeps of his arms at the person by the door.  
"Out with you!"

"My kind?!" was the reply, taking on screech of indignation at the end.  
"What do you mean my kind?!"

"The kind that stink and have no money. Begone!"

Oris Paulum grinned sheepishly and and stared down at his work-stained  
garb. That was reasonable. "But, I can pay..."

"But you still stink. Now, out before I start to throw things at you!" The  
patrons in the tavern made noises of support. Oris Paulum had immidiately  
sought out the stables, worked for hours at what the caravan aides were  
simply too willing to foist off to another, then directly proceeded to  
food. Where he was hungry before now he was ravenous. And stinking to high  
heaven. He simply was too hungry to notice.

His crestfallen mood showed clearly; his shoulders drooped, his face grew  
slack, he turned back slowly and began to plod out back out the door. It  
was all so pitiful, and to Maatli wondered if it might be feigned. No one  
could so possibly be so open with his emotions. A loud, gut-busting rumble  
floated through the entryway as soon he was out past its obscuring beaded  
strings.

That settled her decision. She needed to get out from the stifling air  
inside. She followed the oddly-innocent (and still-odorous traveler  
outside). "You there!" she called out. He hadn't gone far. He turned, and  
gave her such a look; full of wide-eyed, trusting hope that it pained her.  
'What is it with this man?' He surely was her age, if not a bit older.  
She already had counted thirty years, not including what was before her  
death. 'He can't be real. That can't be natural.'

"You... you're an novumora, aren't you?"

"A what?" he answered, with a puppy-like tilt of his head. She resisted  
the urge to throw a wooden sandal at his face.

"A freshly-dead, a new arrival!" she retorted. "Don't you know anything?  
You cannot have been born to this world. How long have you been dead?"

"Does it matter?" he asked, tilting his head to the other side.

"Yes! Accept it, you're dead. You can't come back to life unless it is  
your time. Now, how long...?" She put her fists to her waist and jutted  
her hips out. It was supposed to be a contemptous motion, in a dance. She  
didn't realize many of her unconscious expressions were so. "Has no one  
explained things to you?"

Oris Paulus thought back. The merchant who named him had been a nice  
enough person, but they didn't have much chance for conversation as  
they clung to a raft through white-water rapids. In fact, he was knocked  
off right in the middle of asking what being dead was all about, as it was  
still as god-damned frightening as being alive.

"I... am not sure. I think I might have been knocked on the head at  
some point, there is so much I do not know."

"Wonderful..." Arila huffed. "Stay here. As long as you don't come  
inside I believe I may feed you."

He nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, I will stay!"

"Oh, gods..." she muttered as she went back in. Horrible, just horrible.  
"If you are there, what are you trying inflict on me?" She nodded to her  
father and explained of things. Money was money, it would always smell  
sweet.

----

She stayed outside and watched him eat. The sky was overcast, and the  
wind was cool. The lamps inside could do nothing to chase away the  
feeling of dread. She hugged herself. She looked down at him, squatting  
there with the plate at his feet. She wondered what it would be like, to  
be a man, and be able to sit like that. To be able to fight, and decide  
one's own fate. Women as far she had known were made to be submissive.  
She felt so damn weak! She was no longer an innocent in regards to love  
and lust, but the thought of being taken against her will still  
frightened her. The other women around seemed to take it for granted.  
Marriage to a good man meant accepting his desires, whenever it was.  
To a man less gentle; they simply had to endure.

She wanted more than just being something to stick a thing into. Inside  
Lasurnu that was unlikely. Society was a closed system, and every citizen  
were locked to their roles. It was an engine of fear, she thought. Every  
moment she spent in it she feared that day that her fear would be in  
being anything else or doing the unexpected. It was still the ancient  
world, and not only was slavery acceptable, her status was deemed good.

The dead should be free of such stupidity! It was not so, however, the  
taunting nature of the universe. Only man can help man. Or woman can, as  
the case may be.

"Did you die in battle?" she asked. She could certaintly see it happening.  
His suit of bronze mail was old and worn, but a soldier's functional wear  
and tear. It was not something made for inutile display. He was more than  
fit enough. But he lacked common sense; she even had to slap his hands to  
keep him from eating with them!

"This is a spoon." she had said. "Can you say spoon? You use it so poop  
does not get into your food."

"I am not a child." he replied peevishly, grabbing it out of her hands.  
He was so hungry he simply forgot. Besides, he was dead. What illnesses  
lay waiting to attack his immortal soul? It was camel poopy, not sin!  
Thankfully, he chose not to express that thought. It would have added to  
the list of blatantly, staggeringly stupid things she had heard him say  
thus far. It had yet to be an hour! Already Arila was reaching amazed  
frustration. How could anyone survive thus far in such ignorance?!

"I have no idea." he replied to her question. "Is.. there any clue? I  
do not seem to have retained a death wound."

"You have a formal way of speaking, do you know that? Like... nobility."  
Arila had justifiable reasons to hate the nobility.

"Whatever do you mean?"

She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against the outside  
wall. After a while, she asked in Aramaic, "Can you understand me?"

"Uh. Yes."

She switched to Greek. "How about this? Can you understand what I am  
saying?" Thirty years as a barmaid had given her some knowledge of  
distinct languages of the living world.

"Yes, I can understand you."

She pushed off from the wall and walked over. She bent down and in  
with her finger to the sand wrote her name in the Greek alphabet. "This  
is me, you can read this, right?" At his nod, she continued the same, in  
Roman. "This is Latin. It is similar to Greek, but is slowly diverging  
from it. You have a Roman name. But do you feel as if you know it? That  
is Greek armor you are wearing."

"The man who named me was a Roman, but I did not know at the time what  
a Roman was." He sighed. "I feel as I SHOULD know Greek. What am I  
speaking right now?"

"I... don't know, actually."

He looked disbelieving. "How is that possible?"

"The spoken word can be understood by anyone who died. It does not matter  
what you speak, as as long you direct it to my face, I will hear you. The  
ability to understand someone only applies if they are speaking to you.  
People who are born here do not have this ability, but tend to be more...  
powerful."

"Born?" His eyes widened. "People can be born here? Are we not... dead?  
How can the dead create life?" And squinting; "... what do you mean more  
powerful?"

"Think that is flesh you have there? That food you eat truly meat and  
grain? Luminous beings are we, well and truly dead. Our souls simply seek  
expression." She placed her hand over her womb. "Where do souls come from  
in the first place? I don't believe it is beyond reason that two souls may  
create a third..."

"Astounding."

Then, a little later he added. "The afterlife is truly, messed up."

Arila laughed. "It's as if all the universe is made to taunt us. Our last  
and only choice is in how to take that knowledge of our own insignificance."

She began writing some more, in a script he didn't recognize. "What is  
that?" he asked, while setting his plate aside.

"This is Ishaksos, the common tongue and the written way in the afterlife.  
It is what allows any two people, no matter how different or far apart, to  
communicate and trade. It seems to be as instinctive to all of us." She drew  
more symbols in the sand. "A hyas is a copper coin. Twenty hyas is anyo, or  
silver. Ten of that is solor, or gold. Do you understand this?"

"Hyas, anyo, solor. Yes. I do not have any anyos."

Arila glared. "THAT is something you should NOT be saying so easily. Never  
speak to anyone any specifics about your money. Never!" At his nod, she  
continued. If a Hittite was to speak to another Hittite, you wouldn't  
understand their speech. What you can understand already tells much."

You are freshly dead. That you don't know of the Romans means that you either  
knocked your head even more severely than you thought, or that you never  
encountered them. They are all over the place now, spreading their egoes  
in the afterlife. This tells me you are from northern parts of Greece, most  
likely in the mountains around Macedonia or towards Anatolia. You are minor  
noble, and you died either protecting your land from bandits or in a stupid  
spat against another house."

"Ohh." He looked suitably impressed. "You seem to know a lot. How did  
you do it? Is there some place to view the mortal world?"

She preened. "Hah. People here do nothing but talk. The battles we've  
fought in, the lands we've seen, that fish I almost caught, damn huge  
it was... that sort of thing. Some of them even bring maps to show off."  
Then, she looked abashed. Gossip was one of the reputed habits of her  
gender, as well. One had to make quick deductive leaps to arrive at  
the juiciest of rumors. Truthfully, she found little difference in  
men's discussions and women's gossip. Both were equally hypocritical  
in the face of someone else's misdeeds.

"The living world is just so interesting, it's always moving and  
changing! Not like..." she faltered, then pressed on; her voice dipping.  
"Not like here. There are only the walls and the Hollows..."

"Are the Hollows truly that bad?" He looked past her to the stick-like  
figures of men up on the walls. "Must it be that everyone freed from  
their mortal bodies continue to live in fear?"

"Not that bad?! Have you ever seen one?!"

His mouth was open, but Arila slapped a hand over it before he could  
say yes.

"Don't brag. I would know." She took back her hand and squinted at him.  
"Just seeing one can change you. Imagine the worst of the myths, the  
most evil of humanity... and all that pales before the terror of the  
Hollow.

They feed on you. They don't just kill you. They take your soul, and  
keep you from being reborn. Inside it, there is only pain. Even the  
Hollow is in pain, and that is why it kills and eats. Kills and eats.  
There is no rest for the Hollow, and that is why there is no true  
safe haven for anyone."

She pointed to the sentries he was staring at. "If you want to survive  
your afterlife, then this is what you must know. Everything you do is  
on avoiding Hollows. You must guard against them, pay anything to be  
away from them. Some of the Hollows may be bargained with, and it is  
they who rule these lands of the dead. They keep away the feral ones.  
What you must do is make yourself important, or make yourself scarce...  
just so you are not offered to tribute.

Fear the Hollow, and you live. Anything else, and you might yet be  
reborn. Only in the Hollow are we cut off from the circle of life and  
death, and that is why Hollows are the most frightening things of  
all."

The traveler looked pensive.

"What?"

"It seems like I heard this before..." he said, though unsure. "The  
circle of life and death. It is... a cycle. A snake feeding upon  
itself."

"Ouroboros..." Arila nodded. "The snake feeding upon itself." It was  
indeed a favored symbol of the afterlife, the Lasurnu's own coiled  
sigil reflected that. She pointed to a hanging banner on the central  
tower.

Oris Paulum looked past it, into the remains of memories that had burned  
away in the rebirth of his soul.

-

**You are lamenting about what is not worth the lamenting and you speak  
learned words as well - whether lives are lost or not, the wise never  
lament.**

**I never really did not exist whenever, nor did you; you nor any of all  
these kings - never shall also surely all of us not exist hereafter.**

**Of being embodied one knows the physical of boyhood, youth and old age  
- similarly does attaining to the beyond of the body never delude the  
sober ones.**

**It is only sense perception, o son of Kuntî, like summer and winter,  
happiness and pain given, appear and disappear; none of them are  
permanent, just try to tolerate it, o descendant of the Bharata dynasty.**

**-**

"What did you just say?" Arila was taken aback. That was unexpectedly deep.  
"Where is that from?"

He still seemed lost in the recollection. Memories formed the core of  
a person's identity. In the unforgiving afterlife, one's identity was the  
only thing that anyone could ever really deem theirs. It was their soul's  
own form, and the only thing left sacred to them. That a Hollow could  
take it, debase it so easily was what made them so fearsome. Death beyond  
death was the loss of identity; in being reborn at least they were given  
a fresh new start.

The afterlife was already a disappointment. That this last piece of his  
humanity would be taken even before he set foot upon dead man's land, was  
to him an unfairness of massive proportions.

Again, he asked the gods that do not answer; What could he possibly  
have done to deserve that?

-

And then something exploded in the distance. He sighed. Typical. He just  
couldn't expect a single day to pass without there being some violence  
around him.

He got up and smiled a bit. "Thank you for the meal." And ran away in the  
opposite direction.

"What the- hey, you haven't paid!"

Oh storm gods. More violence in the future.

He knew better than to stick around though. He wasn't THAT stupid.

-

-

-

----------------------------------

Clumsy cliffhanger, I know. Insert commercial break here.


End file.
